Time approvals

Is there a recommended way to get timesheets approved for an employee that is at the top of the organizational who has no supervisor in the employee master to approve his time?

Specifically ----

We are a global company.  The CEO for the Americas, e.g. Bill, has to have a timesheet entered in E1 every pay period.  E1 requires that Bill's time be approved by a supervisor/manager.  The CEO's real supervisor happens to be in another country and not an employee in our E1 application employee master table. 

If we put one of Bill's direct reports as the approver (eg Gabe), Bill can get the time approved; however errors appear on reports and HR is unable to make updates on the employee master records since the approver is also a direct report. (We get recursive error messages.)